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Lygature: our name explained

Our organization was named Lygature to reflect the diverse types and applications of ligatures, used in many different ways to join separate elements. The name emphasizes our role in helping to combine the strengths of many different partners as they work – together – towards a common end goal.

The history of ligatures goes back thousands of years, and different kinds of ligature have long been used to unite individual components in surgery, typography and music.

Ligatures in surgery had already been described by Alexandrian physicians in ancient Greece, and later by the Romans. They were then popularized once again by French war surgeon Ambroise Paré, in the 16th century – an inspirational figure who dramatically reduced the number of deaths from blood loss and gangrene.

The typographic ligature has been around even longer, and can be seen as far back as the script on Cuneiform tablets. Written languages across the world evolved their own ligatures over time, as characters often written next to each other developed to emerge as new, combined characters. Such typographic ligatures have even survived the arrival of computers, thanks to fonts such as the popular Gill Sans.

Ligatures in music have been used in notation, telling musicians to play several notes on a single syllable. They are also used by the mouthpieces of single reed instruments, where metal, leather or even string ligatures hold the reed in place securely but without distortion.

Throughout history, ligatures have been making valuable connections, and Lygature aims to create the links, partnerships and dialogue needed for more effective biomedical innovation: best apart, better together.

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